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The Early Voting Information Center
We are a non-partisan academic research center based at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Professor Paul Gronke and his team conduct research on early voting and election reform, predominantly in the United States. In addition to our scholarly research, we have worked with on projects with the Pew Center on the States, the Federal Election Assistance Commission, and a number of state and local elections offices.
Professor Gronke's academic credentials including his curriculum vita, courses taught, and other research papers can be found at his personal Reed web page.
EVIC researchers for Summer 2013 are Jacob Canter and Chelsea Brossard.
Republicans have the early voting advantage in Florida
Comparisons between rates of early voting in different election cycles are fraught with peril – in general, it’s important to compare this year to past midterm elections. That said, looking at the 2010 and 2008 numbers in Florida reveals a pretty impressive showing for Republicans.
Democratic voters are far below their 2008 turnout rate, which is precisely what we’d expect for a midterm election. The Republican rate, however, is not far off that of the 2008 presidential election!
These are just early in-person data*, but this makes the strong Republican turnout even more remarkable: Typically, Democrats take advantage of early in-person voting at much higher rates.
*Absentee-by-mail returns, which account for around 50% of Florida’s early voting, are restricted to political parties.